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The landscape of Osona is full of life with the presence of migratory birds and the most colorful crops, as can be seen in the Photos of the Readers of La Vanguardia. These are days of storks and rapeseed fields, without forgetting the presence of the mists so characteristic of this Catalan region.
In some areas of Osona it is also known as “baixa joke”. Basically, it’s when a sea of ??fog comes down and covers everything. We are in the place in Spain with the most foggy days, a hundred a year.
The rapeseed fields shine around the sanctuary of Puig-agut, in the surroundings of Manlleu. This was the first temple of these characteristics in Spain to be dedicated to the Sacred Heart.
Its construction was promoted at the end of the 19th century by Ramón Madirolas y Codina, an innovative farmer who promoted it from the magazine Faro de Puig-agut.
The construction was directed by the architect August Font y Carreras, who used a neo-Gothic style with some Romanesque and even neoclassical facets, inspired by the French basilica of Tarbes.
In these images we see how the green and yellow of the rapeseed fields give even more light to this beautiful sanctuary. Rapeseed can be profitable and Osona is precisely the Catalan region with the largest areas of this crop that is used to produce fodder and biodiesel.
The white stork (Ciconia ciconia), a large bird species, is passing through Osona, although it also builds its nests in some places. Its plumage is mostly white with black on the wings. And the legs and beak of adults acquire a red color.
It measures an average of 100 and 115 cm from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail, and its wingspan can reach between 155 and 215 cm.
The stork feeds on small mammals, insects, worms and, to a lesser extent, also frogs, crustaceans, lizards, snakes, fish and carrion.
Years ago, it was normal for the white stork to winter mainly in Africa and its arrival from remote African lands marked the beginning of spring.
However, in recent decades more and more white storks are wintering in Spain and an important change in their migratory behavior has been detected.